Scott McInnis, John Hickenlooper and Dan Maes, at a candidates forum last July. (The Denver Post)

Apparently Colorado will never be able to live down last year’s Republican gubernatorial disaster.

You just knew that when Florida’s state Senate President, Mike Haridopolos, was outed as having been paid $152,000 to write about the history of Florida, someone, somewhere covering his likely foray into the U.S. Senate race there, would mention former Congressman Scott McInnis.

You will remember that last year, the leading candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Colorado was torpedoed by charges that he had plagiarized chunks of “Musings on Water,” a manuscript that a conservative foundation had paid him $300,000 to write.

Many of us were most fascinated by the idea that you could get $300,000 for musing about water. But the voters were upset about the plagiarism part. The candidate, Scott McInnis, lost the nomination to Dan Maes, a dark horse who arguably turned out to be the worst candidate for a major post in a year when his competition included Alvin Greene, the guy running for the Senate in South Carolina whose economic development program involved getting the unemployed to build action figures of Alvin Greene.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.